Category: Daily

We seem to have crammed our “going-out” nights into the last week of Summer. We’re comfortable with just being home most of the time, but we figured it was our last hurrah before a busy school year began again.

After a great weekend of French-toast-making, Lilo-and-Stitch-watching, banana-bread-baking weekend, the kiddos were off with their other parents for the final week of summer :(.

My boss, Gerry, EZ and I had done a photo-shoot the week before for Santa Fe Steakhouse. The owner invited us to try out their new drinks and appetizer menu that Monday so I picked up my love after work and we met everyone at the restaurant. Everything was amazing!

We got done there and went straight to McAllen Food Park to get some skewers from La Caravane. I didn’t even get a photo ’cause we were THAT hungry.

We got home and made a joke about going out. And then we decided, you know what, why not go out?? So we convinced John to quit being a hermit (he’d been going through some stuff) and the 3 of us went to Suerte Bar and Grill downtown. We’d never been there, but I follow them on Instagram and LOVE the photos of their drinks and the decor is just right up my alley!

The work week went by, which also consisted of appointments for Mom. Jorge got a call from Briana, who was terribly sick with Strep and fever and couldn’t see a doctor. He got one of his co-workers to bring some antibiotics from Reynosa and we made a quick road trip to Austin that Saturday to drop them off.

We’d kept it quiet and surprised Dina when we got there :). Jorge had let Joe know we would be in town so we met up with him on 6th Street and he gave us a tour. He took us to the “tamer” part of 6th St.

I’m an old lady, so we didn’t stay out long, and plus, Jorge was tired from the long drive. I was happy to crash out when we got back to Dina’s.

The next morning we lazied around and then got ready for lunch at Chuy’s. Briana already sounded 100x better, thank goodness.

It was hatch chile week and I made the mistake of ordering hatch chile enchiladas! They looked delicious, but were so hot my mouth was on FIRE.

We made a trip to the mall that contained a Hallmark store, which was a little far, but my love is the best and always goes above and beyond for me <3. We ended up finding the Rainbow Brite Itty Bittys!

And then it was time to drop everyone off and rush home to pick up the girls since the next day was the first day of school! So we cranked up the music and karaoke’d our way home to these beauties:

I officially missed updating for July *sigh*. But we’ve had a busy month and when I’m not with the kiddos, I’m with the husband and there’s always something going on. Add to that, that my laptop officially croaked and my iPad keyboard died, too 😭.

Eenan’s birthday was July 30th and we officially have a 16-yr-old, ahhh!

I have a huge event (nauseatingly, teeth-clenchingly-potential-disaster huge) tomorrow and more activities on Friday, so I need to mentally prepare for that…and buy a dress…ugh. At least I have coupons!

So, hopefully this won’t be the last time I update this month. I hope to update about the end of June and July’s happenings this weekend. Perhaps after I have lunch with Sally, donate blood and visit Gramma this Saturday. Gotta get back to work (on lunch break!).

I can’t speak much about it, because I’m a firm believer that I’ll jinx things, so I decided to blog–privately, for now–about our latest news.

Jorge and I are in a race to buy this house.

The rent is increasing as of August and there’s supposedly someone interested in buying the house. So we have to move fast.

I’ve only mentioned a few things to Michelle, but I don’t want to tell too many people because I’m just nervous and I really want this.

We are pre-approved and we have a meeting on Monday. Although the place is a bit old (built in 1989), and our air conditioning unit likes to take a crap every year, and the bathrooms all need to be remodeled due to old leaks before we ever moved in, and the huge yard needs to be cut every week, and the laundry room’s too narrow, and we need at least 2 more bedrooms, and the living room is recessed (ugh), and I’d like to knock that wall down between the kitchen and dining room…this is home. This has been our home for the past 4 years, 1 month and 27 days.

This is where our kids have grown; grown up, grown close. Where we’ve all grown as a family. Where we have parties on our porch and backyard. Where we snuggle and sprawl all over the living room and watch movies. Where we make cupcakes and new stuff to cook that we found on Pinterest in the kitchen. Where the kids can run in the yard. Where we spend entire Sundays in the laundry room washing and drying clothes and folding into 9 piles. This is home.

When Jorgie, Jaylen, Justin and I went for our jog last night, Jorgie found some paint samples in the center console of the car. He looked at the 3 cards and said, “What are these?? Are we moving??” I laughed and said, “No, it’s just colors I like.” They all agreed they didn’t ever want to move. Justin said, “This is the best yard for football.” I agree.

Back in 2011 when we were looking for a place to rent, we searched everywhere. I remember feeling disappointed about the small, cramped homes we’d see with the tiny yards. The slightly bigger homes would be substantially more expensive. Then Rosie told me about this one. It was in her old neighborhood and there was a for rent sign. We got the number and called and got an appointment to see it. I remember doing the walk-through and feeling a pit of sadness in my belly. I felt like it was almost perfect, and that meant it probably wasn’t going to happen. And then it did, and it became home.

You just can’t find new homes like this, with these big yards and big rooms. Not unless you want to pay tons more money. And we don’t!

We have an appointment on Monday to determine what the next step is. That’s what life’s been about lately: next steps. But it’s all about the bigger picture.